GeForce.com now offers new NVIDIA GeForce beta version 301.24 drivers, adding new gaming features and promising a performance boost in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Here's a bit on what the new driver family introduces:

With the release of the GeForce 301.24 beta driver, a high-speed, shader-based anti-aliasing technique can be applied directly to hundreds of games through the NVIDIA Control Panel. Called NVIDIA FXAA, this technique is up to 60% faster than 4xMSAA, and can produce results equal to or better than the ageing anti-aliasing solution. Furthermore, FXAA is able to anti-alias increasingly-popular transparent textures, as shown in our Batman: Arkham City Graphics Breakdown and Performance Guide, making it the clear winner in many of today’s games.

And new HDD's and new ram, because the texture size required not to pixelate at that res would need to be 300 PPI as well.. there is a reason this whole graphics area stagnates and for once its not just consoles....

Is this from the newest driver release notes!? Or just things planning to be implemented?

Havent had a chance today to check out the newest beta drivers yet, but if those are all in I'll be upgrading tonight to check them out!

EDIT: D'oh, 2nd sentence in on the beta driver release page. LOL I am *very* happy they have gotten these things implemented for GPU's all the way down to the 8 Series. Fuck yes. Looks like some tests of this new functionality are in order tonight =) Hopefully now the only external program I'll have to use for video is D3DOverrider for Triple Buffering forcing in D3D games. (Still hoping they expand this into drivers, but I've heard it isnt going to happen because of policies on the directx side of things)

I love how they use the term "Frame Rate Target" instead of "Frame Rate Limiter". Marketing at it's finest.. not making people feel limited with words like "Limiter" around

I've been using onboard audio recently, it does the job but there is a lot of hiss. However, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle the Creative tend to put me through. Is something like a Xonar any good?

bhcompy wrote on Apr 9, 2012, 14:53:I so miss my Aureal A3D sound card. In my mind, Creative has yet to catch up, even if they did buy the tech. If I could find supported drivers I'd use it to this day.

I finally ended it with Creative cards.I brought an M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496. It's an entry level pro audio card.And while it's only a stereo output card (no fancy home cinema for you), the sound quality you'll be getting it's amazing.Especially the low end. My theory is that noise levels in consumer cards (read Creative and co.) is so high that they erase some low end harmonics which you will hear with this sort of card. Even with a bunch of shitty speakers like my Cambridge 2.1. I mean I listen to a Cypress Hill record after 10 years and I'm hearing samples that I never heard before

I'm really not trying to go the "audiophile meme" bullshit route (even tho' the card is called Audiophile but the tone difference between htis and even the Fatal1ty card is so noticeable that I'm never going back to consumer Hi-Fi Home Theater bullshit ever.

Oh, and not to mention that the ability to rip "what you hear" at pro recording standards :))

eRe4s3r wrote on Apr 9, 2012, 15:13:But maybe there is other ways than ENBSeries? That works on nearly no game properly. Latest version doesn't even run on more than like 5 games.

ENB series supports other games in older releases. When the author makes a new version, there is no promise for backwards compatibility for other games. For the intents and purposes of the previous versions, they have been tuned to what the developer wanted to achieve in that particular game before moving on.

What I'm most looking forward to in new Nvidia drivers are a proper FPS limiter, triple buffering for Direct3D games, and their new v-sync technique(s). It is very annoying to have to use multiple third party programs to achieve these things.

Nvidia is catching on to the fact that many of their users are doing this. FPS limiter will be in their drivers soon, and hopefully the new adaptive v-sync implementation will be available to older gpu's as well, and is effective in the struggle between glitch-free graphics on flatscreens (v-sync on), and the massive input lag that it causes. (not to mention the stabilizing effect it can have on 50-300FPS jumps in some areas of games)

Their new AA implementation in the 680 series looks interesting as well, as I think they are actively developing new techniques like this, as opposed to trying to get FXAA more complicated and demanding with other filters & fixes involved. One of the core cases I believe they have laid out for the new AA is the increase in sharpness when compared to other post-process AA routines (FXAA).

Either way, I am happy with Nvidia's choices to mature their drivers and hardware in the direction they are going, it shows they are at least somewhat attentive to their audience's needs... which is *not* all just "MORE SPEED!". That makes GPU users look like a bunch of junkies, when some of us 3D addicts quite prefer the quality in our product first and foremost. =)

Well that does offer better sharpening thats for sure. Doesn't mess up the GUI either. But maybe there is other ways than ENBSeries? That works on nearly no game properly. Latest version doesn't even run on more than like 5 games. And I find that AO or Bokeh DOF isn't really worth the effort for most games either. Though it does have extensive tuning possibilities in the end that matters little if it only works on few games. I find the injector a far better approach.

If there'd be a way to have the FXAA Injector color and brightness tuning, ENB series palette, and SMAA and this sharpening shader combined that'd be neat.

I tried Skyrim with all the possible combinations, but in the end its always the FXAA Injector again for me.

Mastaba wrote on Apr 9, 2012, 14:47:3dfx's patents became NVIDIA's once the buyout was completed.

Bingo.

Just like the Aureal A3D patents became Creative's after they bought them out.. and Creative did the same goddamn thing and sat on a superior technology in favor of their own inferior one because of hubris.

Unfortunately I can't integrate it with SMAA, because I need to run the sharpening in a pass before SMAA, and the injector does not support extra custom passes. Maybe in the future?So for now my focus is integrating it into ENBseries because ENBseries have a proxy option to use another injector as it have run.It's a roundabout way but it should give me the ability to run sharpening before SMAA.

FXAA is not called blur AA for nothing. ^^ It makes the ugly pixels go away, muddles color definitions, and blurs definitions and contrasts, that is why to actually use FXAA PROPERLY you need pre and post sharpening filters with color, contour and contrast awareness.

Amount of games and drivers that do this without an injector = 0

So forget using FXAA in the driver, get the FXAA Injector instead.

by the way, did they fix that FXAA is applied to the GUI in games not made for it? That'd be the only thing it would have going for it then